Connections
by Random Guise
Summary: Based on the movie "Groundhog Day". Phil Connors finds himself living February 2 over and over in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. At the end of the movie he's a better man, but maybe he needed a helping hand to set him on the road to self-improvement. I don't own these characters, but I've had a chinchilla before.


Connections

Phil Connors walked down the street without looking at it. To say he was familiar with the street was an understatement; besides walking down it interminable times, he had jumped to his death from a tower, been killed by a bus, intentionally walked into an open manhole and tried jumping into the back of a passing truck all on this street. Three miles ahead the railroad tracks crossed; he had learned the best way to hop a freight train and just how fast it could go before jumping off would kill you. He knew this street better than his own. When you live the same day over and over again stuck in the same town, you can't help but retrace your steps after a while.

Despite the cold weather, he didn't wear a coat. If he caught cold or even pneumonia, he'd just be back to perfect health tomorrow. Even his shoes hadn't worn down from all the walking, being renewed the next morning. How many days? Weeks? Months? He'd lost track now because it didn't matter. He had met and got to know just about every person in the near vicinity, most of the animals, and what song was going to come on the radio next. Very little had escaped his eventual attention in what he was coming to think of as Purgatory, Pennsylvania.

Up ahead in the park sitting on a bench was an older man that Phil had avoided to this point. The man never looked up from his book, never moved, and was always there at one in the afternoon. Having nothing better to do, Phil approached and sat on the bench.

"Must be a good book" Phil told the man.

He looked up from the book. "Nothing says it has to be a good one, although if you read the blurbs on the back it's the best one ever written. But the truth is I wasn't really reading it anyway; it kind of bores me, actually." He closed the book and looked at Phil through wire-rimmed glasses. "The author states the obvious, but takes forever to do it. It's a wonder he's even sold any books."

"Who's the author?"

"Me."

Phil looked at the cover of the book. 'Change: Get the Connection - by Jackson Moser' was written across the cover. He extended his hand to the man with a "Phil Connors, non-author."

Jackson shook his hand. "Author, part-time teacher, and grand master bench warmer. I'm also pretty good at feeding pigeons most days. Call me Jack. In town for the festival?"

"Yeah. Seems like I've been coming to the festival for a lifetime but it's only my fourth year. I'm sticking around because of a blizzard coming in. You might say I'll be in town for a while. So what's the book about?"

"Oh, just pointing out how everything is connected. No matter what you do, something is affected by it. People change things, things change people."

"I disagree" Phil countered. "I vary my day in so many ways you'd be surprised, but I wake up each morning and nothing has changed. And that's a fact, Jack."

"That's what you think. Now I'm not saying the sun is going to come up another color from something you do, but you have to look at it from a much smaller scale. See that man in the red hat there?" Jack pointed to an older man walking down the sidewalk with a newspaper in his hand.

"Yeah, that's Howard Slokem."

"Oh, you know him? Did you know he buys a newspaper every day from the drug store down the street?"

"Sure. I've even helped him with the crossword while he was in the diner before" Phil answered. Phil actually had the crossword memorized and Howard always seemed to get stuck on 27 across.

"Did you ever wonder why he buys the paper off the rack when it would be cheaper to subscribe?"

"No. Never thought about it. He probably has his reasons, maybe he gets a different paper some days."

"He could, but he doesn't. He buys it because of the woman that sells the paper."

"Mary?" Phil exclaimed. "That little minx, I thought she was a little too friendly with everyone."

"She is friendly, but that's just how she is. But she's smitten with Howard. And Howard is with her. They just don't know it yet; I've been watching it develop for some time now. When he buys the paper, it brightens his day and hers. They pass it on to the people they meet. It spreads out, although it fades over time like the ink on a receipt. But the next day he buys another paper and it starts all over again. That's the key you know, repeating the process."

"What...do...you...know...about...repeating" Phil said deliberately.

Jack looked at Phil seriously as he put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm a lot older than you, and I watch and think more. Nothing personal. But we learn through repetition. We learn our mistakes, we learn _from_ our mistakes, and we learn not to make them again. We learn just a little bit about ourselves, and in the process we learn just a little bit about others. Besides, if you do something over again it isn't _exactly_ the same even if it _mostly_ is; you're changed by the experience."

He pulled a piece of popcorn out of a bag beside him. "Let's try to feed that brown pigeon" he said. He gave it a toss and it hit the head of a white pigeon, which eat the food. "Now let's try again." He tossed another, which bounced off the white one before being eaten by the brown bird. "Not exactly like I wanted, but it got the job done, like Edison with his light bulb; at some point he got the result he wanted. Is that such a bad thing?"

"No, of course not," Phil replied. "unless you're trying to give concussions to birds. But it would be a lot easier just to get the result all at once instead of failing day after day. After day. After day..."

"Easier yes, better no. Learning is a process; you're not just learning a fact or a skill, but you're learning about learning too. Like finding what way works best for you to discover a talent you didn't know you had. Take Howard and Mary for example. Go tell Howard that Mary feels the way she does for him and he'd just deny it; he's not ready to accept that fact yet. But as he continues to make those connections, maybe pick up on what others say or notice how she acts from time to time he'll start to accept the fact and can act on it when he's ready. Everything in its time."

"So everything has a time, is that it? If I wait long enough or talk to enough people then my change will come."

"Oh no, sometimes for whatever reason those connections can never be made and the change you're looking for doesn't happen no matter how you try. But if they are going to be made, it will be when the proper time comes. Tomorrow, the next day or next year; the conditions have to be right. In the meantime, just work on yourself; self-improvement never hurt anyone. Well," Jack said as he stared at his hands "unless you're not very good at whittling. That kinda hurt." They both laughed.

"So I just sit and contemplate the universe while I sing Koombaya."

"You can if you want, but you won't make many connections that way and you'll limit what you can change about yourself. You have to go out and let empathy take its turn too. You might find that when you help others you end up improving yourself too. You don't have to save the world every day, but even opening a door for someone who has their hands full can lead to bigger things."

"Right. I'm going to go make an important connection right now with a beer. Thanks for the advice, Jack." Phil stood and shook his hand again.

"Remember Phil, one day at a time. If you want changes, you need to make connections."

Right, thought Phil.

The next day Phil went back to the park to ask about empathy, but oddly Jack was no where to be seen. He went to the bookstore to buy the book, but Maureen behind the counter looked up the name and told him no such author existed. The next day Phil went back to the part, but it was the same; no Jack. In fact, he never saw Jackson Moser anywhere ever again.

But he continued to think about what the man had said.

The End

* * *

 **A/N: Phil just didn't come to grips with life overnight, or even in a week. The movie doesn't explicitly say how long he repeated February 2nd, but it must have been a long time, probably even years. It seems to me that he must have gotten a little nudge to help put him on the right course.**


End file.
